again, and perhaps go even further in his rage. Strangely enough, there crept into his sun-burnt, massive face, at the corners of the eyes and mouth, something like the beginnings of a puzzled smile. You're a cheeky little cuss, anyway!" was his final comment. Then his expression hardened again. 'Who put you up to comin' here, an' talkin' like this to me?" he demanded, sternly. "Nobody-hope to die!" protested Ni. "It's all my own spec. It riled me to see you mopin' round up here all alone by yourself, not knowin' what'd become of Jeff, an' makin' b'lieve to yourself you didn't care, an' so givin' yourself away to the whole neighborhood."

"Damn the neighborhood!" said Abner, fervently.

"Well, they talk about the same of you," Ni proceeded, with an air of impartial candor. "But all that don't do you no good, an' don't do Jeff no good!" "He made his own bed, and he must lay on it," said the farmer, with dogged firmness.

"I ain't sayin' he mustn't," remon. strated the other. 66 'What I'm gittin' at is that you'd feel easier in your mind if you knew where that bed was-an' so'd M'rye!"

Abner lifted his head. "His mother feels jest as I do," he said. "He sneaked off behind our backs to jine Lincoln's nigger-worshippers, an' levy war on fellow-countrymen o' his'n who'd done him no harm, an' whatever happens to him. it serves him right. I ain't much of a hand to lug in Scripter to back up my argyments-like some folks you know of-but my feelin' is: 'Whoso taketh up the sword shall perish by the sword!' An' so says his mother too!"

"Hm-m!" grunted Ni, with ostenta tious incredulity. He bit into his apple, and there ensued a momentary silence. Then, as soon as he was able to speak, this astonishing boy said: "Guess I'll have a talk with M'rye about that herself."

The farmer's patience was running emptings. "No!" he said, severely, "I forbid ye! Don't ye dare say a word to her about it. She don't want to listen to ye-an' I don't know what's possessed me to stand round an' gab about my

Abner put the fork over his shoulder, as a sign that he was going, and that the interview was at an end. But the persistent Ni had a last word to offer— and he left his barrel and walked over to the farmer.

"See here," he said, in more urgent tones than he had used before, "I'm goin' South, an' I'm goin' to find Jeff if it takes a leg! I don't know how much it'll cost-I've got a little of my own saved up-an' I thought p'r'apsp'r'aps you'd like to

After a moment's thought the farmer shook his head. "No," he said, gravely, almost reluctantly. almost reluctantly. "It's agin my principles. You know me-Ni-you know I've never b'en a near man, let alone a mean man. An' ye know, too, that if Je if that boy had behaved half-way decent, there ain't anything under the sun I wouldn't 'a' done for him. this thing-I'm obleeged to ye for offrin-but-No! it's agin my principles. Still, I'm obleeged to ye. Fill your pockets with them spitzenbergs, if they taste good to ye."

But

With this Abner Beech turned and walked resolutely off.

Left alone with me, Ni threw away the half- eaten apple he had held in his hand. "I don't want any of his dummed old spitzenbergs," he said, pushing his foot into the heap of fruit on the ground, in a meditative way. "Then you ain't agoin' South?' queried.

I

"Yes I am!" he replied, with decision. "I can work my way somehow. Only don't you whisper a word about it to any livin' soul, d'ye mind!"

Two or three days after that we heard that Ni Hagadorn had left for unknown parts. Some said he had gone to enlist-it seems that, despite his youth and small stature in my eyes, he would have been acceptable to the enlistment standards of the day-but

Congress and Governor were to be elected a few weeks hence-but there were next to no tidings from the front. The war, in fact, seemed to have almost stopped altogether, and this paper spoke of it as a confessed failure. Farmer Beech and Hurley, of course, took the same view, and their remarks quite prepared me from day to day to hear that peace had been concluded.

But down at the Corners a strikingly different spirit reigned. It quite surprised me, I know, when I went down on occasion for odds and ends of groceries which the bad roads prevented us from getting in town, to discover that the talk there was all in favor of having a great deal more war than ever. This store at the Corners was also the post-office, and, more important still, it served as a general rallying place for the men-folks of the neighborhood after supper. Lee Watkins, who kept it, would rather have missed a meal of victuals any day than not to have had the "boys" come in of an evening, and sit or lounge around discussing the situation. Many of them were very old boys now, garrulous seniors who remembered "Matty" Van Buren, as they called him, and told weird stories of the Anti-Masonry days. These had the well-worn arm-chairs nearest the stove, in cold weather, and spat tobacco-juice on its hottest parts with a precision born of long-time experience. The younger fellows accommodated themselves about the outer circle, squatting on boxes, or with one leg over a barrel, sampling the sugar and crackers and raisins in an absent-minded way each evening, till Mrs. Watkins came out and put the covers on. She was a stout, peevish woman in bloomers, and they said that her husband, Lee, couldn't have run the post-office for twenty-four hours if it hadn't been for her. We understood that she was a Woman's Rights' woman, which some held was much the same as believing in Free Love. All that was certain, however, was that she did not believe in free lunches out of her husband's barrels and cases.

The chief flaw in this village parliament was the absence of an opposition. Among all the accustomed assemblage of men who sat about, their hats well

back on their heads, their mouths full of strong language and tobacco, there was none to disagree upon any essential feature of the situation with the others. To secure even the merest semblance of variety, those whose instincts were cross-grained had to go out of their way to pick up trifling points of difference, and the arguments over these had to be spun out with the greatest possible care, to be kept going at all. I should fancy, however, that this apparent concord only served to keep before their minds, with added persistency, the fact that there was an opposition, nursing its heretical wrath in solitude up on the Beech farm. At all events, I seemed never to go into the grocery of a night without hearing bitter remarks, or even curses, levelled at our household.

It was from these casual visits-standing about on the outskirts of the gathering, beyond the feeble ring of light thrown out by the kerosene lamp on the counter-that I learned how deeply the Corners were opposed to peace. It appeared from the talk here that there was something very like treason at the front. The victory at Antietam-so dearly bought with the blood of our own people-had been, they said, of worse than no use at all. The defeated Rebels had been allowed to take their own time in crossing the Potomac comfortably. They had not been pursued or molested since, and the Corners could only account for this on the theory of treachery at Union head-quarters. Some only hinted guardedly at this. Others declared openly that the North was being sold out by its own generals. As for old "Jee" Hagadorn, who came in almost every night, and monopolized the talking all the while he was present, he made no bones of denouncing McClellan and Porter as traitors who must be hanged.

He comes before me as I write-his thin form quivering with excitement, the red stubbly hair standing up all round his drawn and livid face, his knuckles rapping out one fierce point after another on the candle-box, as he filled the hot little room with angry declamation. Go it Jee"! "Give 'em Hell"! "Hangin's too good for 'em!"

his auditors used to exclaim in encour agement, whenever he paused for breath, and then he would start off again still more furiously, till he had to gasp after every word, and screamed "Lincolnah!" "Lee-ah!" "Antietam-ah!" and so on, into our perturbed ears. Then I would go home, recalling how he had formerly shouted about 'Adam-ah!" and "Eve-ah!" in church, and marvelling that he had never worked himself into a fit, or broken a blood-vessel.

So between what Abner and Hurley said on the farm, and what was proclaimed at the Corners, it was pretty hard to figure out whether the war was going to stop, or go on much worse than ever.

Things were still in this doubtful state, when election Tuesday came round. I had not known or thought about it, until, at the breakfast-table Abner said that he guessed he and Hurley would go down and vote before dinner. He had some days before secured a package of ballots from the organization of his party at Octavius, and these he now took from one of the bookcase drawers, and divided between himself and Hurley.

"They won't be much use, I dessay, peddlin' 'em at the polls," he said, with a grim momentary smile, "but, by the Eternal, we'll vote 'em!"

"As many of 'em as they'll be allowin' us," added Hurley, in chuckling qualifi

cation.

They were very pretty tickets in those days, with marbled and plaided backs in brilliant colors, and spreading eagles in front, over the printed captions. In other years I had shared with the urchins of the neighborhood the excitement of scrambling for a share of these ballots, after they had been counted, and tossed out of the boxes. The conditions did not seem to be favorable for a repetition of that this year, and apparently this occurred to Abner, for of his own accord he handed me over some dozen of the little packets, each tied with a thread, and labelled, "State," "Congressional," "Judiciary," and the He, moreover, consented - the morning chores being out of the way that I should accompany them to the Corners. The ground had frozen stiff

like.

overnight, and the road lay in hard uncompromising ridges between the tracks of yesterday's wheels. The two men swung along down the hill ahead of me, with resolute strides and their heads proudly thrown back, as if they had been going into battle. I shuffled on behind in my new boots, also much excited. The day was cold and raw.

The polls were fixed up in a little building next to the post-office-a onestory frame structure where Lee Watkins kept his bob-sleigh and oil barrels, as a rule. These had been cleared out into the yard, and a table and some chairs put in in their place. A pane of glass had been taken out of the window. Through this aperture the voters, each in his turn, passed their ballots, to be placed by the inspectors in the several boxes ranged along the window-sill inside. A dozen or more men, mainly in army overcoats, stood about on the sidewalk or in the road outside, stamping their feet for warmth, and slapping their shoulders with their hands, between the fingers of which they held little packets of tickets like mine-that is to say, they were like mine in form and brilliancy of color, but I knew well enough that there the resemblance ended abruptly. A yard or so from the window two posts had been driven into the ground, with a board nailed across to prevent undue crowding.

Abner and Hurley marched up to the polls without a word to anyone, or any sign of recognition from the bystanders. Their appearance, however, visibly awakened the interest of the Corners, and several young fellows who were standing on the grocery steps sauntered over in their wake to see what was going on. These, with the ticket-pedlers, crowded up close to the window now, behind our two men.

"Abner Beech!" called the farmer through the open pane, in a defiant voice. Standing on tiptoe, I could just see the heads of some men inside, apparently looking through the election books. No questions were asked, and in a minute or so Abner had voted and stood aside a little, to make room for his companion.

"Timothy Joseph Hurley!" shouted our hired man, standing on his toes to

make himself taller, and squaring his weazened shoulders.

Got your naturalization papers?' came out a sharp, gruff inquiry through the window-sash.

"That I have! said the Irishman, wagging his head in satisfaction at having foreseen this trick, and winking blandly into the wall of stolid, hostile faces encircling him. "That I have!" He drew forth an old and crumpled envelope, from his breast-pocket, and extracted some papers from its ragged folds which he passed through to the inspector. The latter just cast his eye over the documents and handed them back.

Aw, shut up, you Mick!" someone called out close by, and then there rose another voice farther back in the group: "Don't let him vote! One Copperhead's enough in Agrippa!"

"I'll have the law-"I heard Hurley begin again, at the top of his voice, and Abner roared out something I could not catch. Then as in a flash the whole cluster of men became one confused whirling tangle of arms and legs, sprawling and wrestling on the ground, and from it rising the repellent sound of blows upon flesh, and a discordant chorus of grunts and curses. Big chunks of icy mud flew through the air, kicked up by the boots of the men as they struggled. I saw the two posts with the board weave under the strain, then give way, some of the embattled group tumbling over them as they fell. It was wholly impossible to guess who was who in this writhing and tossing mass

of fighters. I danced up and down in a frenzy of excitement, watching this wild spectacle, and, so I was told years afterward, screaming with all my might

and main.

Then all at once there was a mighty upheaval, and a big man half-scrambled, half-hurled himself to his feet. It was Abner, who had wrenched one of the posts bodily from under the others, and swung it now high in air. Some one clutched it, and for the moment stayed its descent, yelling, meanwhile, "Look out! Look out!" as though life itself depended on the volume of his voice.

The ground cleared itself as if by magic. On the instant there was only Abner standing there with the post in his hands, and little Hurley beside him, the lower part of his face covered with blood, and his coat torn half from his back. The others had drawn off, and formed a semicircle just out of reach of the stake, like farm-dogs round a wounded bear at bay. Two or three of them had blood about their heads and necks.

There were cries of, "Kill him!" and it was said afterward that Roselle Upman drew a pistol, but if he did others dissuaded him from using it. Abner stood with his back to the building, breathing hard, and a good deal covered with mud, but eying the crowd with a masterful ferocity, and from time to time shifting his hands to get a new grip on that tremendous weapon of his. He said not a word.

The Irishman, after a moment's hesitation, wiped some of the blood from his mouth and jaw, and turned to the window again. "Timothy Joseph Hurley!" he shouted in, defiantly.

This time another inspector came to the front-the owner of the tanyard over on the Dutch road, and a man of importance in the district. Evidently there had been a discussion inside.

We will take your vote if you want to swear it in," he said, in a pacific tone, and though there were some dissenting cries from the crowd without, he read the oath, and Hurley mumbled it after him.

Then, with some difficulty, he sorted out from his pocket some torn and mud-stained packets of tickets, picked the cleanest out from each, and voted